Coasting through Day 5

Yesterday was a big day at the Bhagwat. They had an extraneous celebration of Krishna’s birthday. Like Christmas in July. There was a big crowd of neighbors, along with a growing number of family members.

The neighbor’s baby was enlisted to be Baby Krishna. He never cried during the whole ceremony, including being ogled, then carried in a basket on Dharmendra’s head. Dharmendra was dressed up as Vasudeva, Krishna’s father. The story has similarities to that of Moses.

I am a terrible photographer and videographer. I did finally figure out how to edit the clip of Dharmendra carrying the baby in on his head, to get it to a size I can post. Who knows if the sound works. It is showing itself muted to me. The whole point of posting a video is to get the sound. GRRRR. I told Dharmendra I was impressed that his neighbor trusted him to carry the baby on his head. He said it was only because he first had seriously asked himself if he could do it.

Anyway, the afternoon was just crazy, with a large crowd and the kids started getting wild at 4 pm, while the ceremony had started at 3 pm, and didn’t finish until 7:30 pm. There was a somewhat sad looking group of three small children who had been the exception. They showed up on day 2, wearing somewhat dirty clothes. One of the other kids was not very nice to them. They have come back both days now, dressed more nicely, and looking clean. I smiled at them, and here is one of my rewards from yesterday.

I did manage to get a better picture of the Swami. He looked really fed up with all the commotion. I bet he was wishing he had stayed in his cave, where he lived for 20 years, some years back.

It was a long day, and when it was all over, they had dinner. Dharmendra said 8, 8:30, so I decided to stay. Of course it was 9. The food was more varied than what I would have at the hotel. The servings are always for family style. So I can’t finish a serving of lentils (dahl), raita (yogurt with chopped veggies) and a chapati. I’d rather have rice to sop up the soupy dahl, but they don’t serve a little dish like the Chinese restaurants in the US do. So I have skipped the rice. Last night was kidney bean dahl, rice, cooked veggies, sliced carrots and cukes, and chapatis. Very tasty. I walked the 81 year old French woman back to where she is staying at a music ashram, on the way back to my hotel, rather than staying for the kirtan. That supposedly finally got started at 10:30 pm and finished at 12:15 am. They were a little later than I was for this morning’s prayers.

I have had time for relaxation. The whole week is essentially relaxation. Yesterday I worked with my Rosetta Stone Hindi a bit, and was able to use one of my new words right away! Last night I started reading Ursula LeGuin’s translation of the Tao. She passed away a little over a year ago, one my last nights in Rishakesh during my January 2018 trip.

During the afternoon Bhagavad Gita readings, I have been reading the Divine Life Society’s translation. I won’t say following along, as I have absolutely no idea what sections the main priest is actually reading. It seems like he is giving much more Hindi commentary than doing original Sanscrit reading. And for this whole sublime message of the Gita, if you are not sitting up front, where I can’t sit as the chairs are not allowed up front, for obvious reasons, you are going to hear not much, if anything. Despite that, last night as I read the Tao, I noted that both are essentially promoting the value of non-duality. Although the date of the war that is the nominal reason for the philosophical discourse that we know as “The Gita” is possibly as early as 5000 years ago, the enlightened message, that there is nothing but God, may be as new as only 2200 years old, or so. That would make it a bit newer than the Tao. On the other hand, nobody really knows. But the idea of non-duality definately seems to me to from the east. And the yin-yang symbol seems primordial to me. Of course, there are people who think it was the Egyptians who are the origin of all legitimate spirituality.

Anyway, when I first read the Gita, in 2001, I was disgusted by the emphasis of “doing one’s duty,” basically to maintain the social structure. As I am not a fan of the current social structure, although it is preferable to the one that held sway at the time of the Gita, I really struggled to appreciate major portions of this Divine text.

But yesterday, as I read, while listening to the goings on around me, I found myself coming to terms with the fact that I HAVE been trying my best to do MY WORK for the BENEFIT of HUMANITY in the best way I can manage. Probably, the original author(s) of the Gita would not recognize my efforts to teach critical thinking as one of the standard “jobs” allotted by the societal structure. Nor would they likely approve of my assigning this “duty” to myself. Although I do come from a family of many teachers, at least from the last four generations. But the teaching, as in my case, is nominally a sideline business of something else.

That’s ok. Every spiritual text has to originate in a certain time and place. It’s up to each of us to find the part of it that resonates with us. In my case, I now find hope in the message that it’s better to do something, our own work, badly if that’s all we can manage, and my situation often reveals my inadequacy, to myself if not to too many others, than to be slothful and set a bad example to others.

Sorry for the long sentence!